Viewing a solar eclipse

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes
between the Earth and the sun,
and the moon's
shadow
covers part of the Earth,
and a total solar eclipse takes place when the moon's
shadow blocks out the sun
entirely.

This particular solar eclipse was
unique,
because it has only ever
occurred
on December 25th
30 times during the past 5000 years, the last time in 1954.

Was it really unique?
Can you add more to that sentence to qualify the word unique?

What word has a similar meaning to 'happened'?

Which syllable is stressed in the word 'entirely' ?

Make a sentence where the words occurred and happened
are interchangeable and where these two words have different meanings.

Sunglasses can block out some of the sun's
ultravioletrays,
but the results can be very
deceptive.
The eye's natural reaction to this darkened state when
wearing sunglasses is to make the pupil larger,
which allows in more light and can
intensify
the damage to your eye.

You can watch an eclipse by
projecting the sun's
image on a piece of paper either by using a
telescope,
or easier still, by creating a
pinhole
in a piece of paper and viewing the
result on another piece of paper, this is called a pinhole
projector.

In case you didn't catch this last
spectaculareclipse
on December 25th, 2000, there's no need to
fret.
Your descendants
can record the next eclipse on Christmas
in the year 2307, but only if they're visiting
the west coast of Africa for their holidays.

People standing across a great swathe of the Earth's surface saw the Moon
take a big bite out of the Sun.
For north Africa and much of Europe, the event began at sunrise,
whereas in central Russia and north-west China,
the spectacle occurred at sunset.
North-east Sweden had the best sight.
From 0850 GMT, near the city of Skelleftea,
the Moon covered almost 90% of the Sun's diameter.

The BBC's Jonathan Amos: "It's the beauty of seeing these celestial bodies move"
To get that view, however, Swedish skywatchers would have needed
a high vantage point, as both celestialbodies were
skirting
the horizon at that time.
As is always the case for solar eclipses,
the public was warned to take great care.
Viewing the Sun's harsh light should only be
done through protective equipment
- proper solar glasses and solar telescopes,
or through a pinhole projection system.

partial
solar eclipses occur when the Sun and Moon
do not quite align in the sky as viewed from Earth,
and the deep shadow cast by the smaller
body passing
across the bigger one just misses the planet.
Viewing the Sun's harsh light
should only be done through protective equipment

Nonetheless, the phenomenon resulted in a
dip
in light, depending on how big a chunk of the solar disc
the Moon was seen to obscure.
This effect varied from place to place and in time.
Northern Algeria was the first location to experience the eclipse.
In European cities like London and Paris,
the eclipse was already under way as the Sun rose.
The further east the event tracked,
the closer it got to local sunset.
Central Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and north-west
China all observed an eclipsed Sun over the horizon.

Choose words

You might
witness
it once, or if you're
particularly lucky or very long-lived,
perhaps twice.
But a total solar
____________ is worth the wait.
At the height of totality,
the fit of the sun and the moon is so perfect that beads of sunlight can only just
____________
the rugged valleys on the lunar
____________ ,
creating the stunning 'diamond ring' effect.
It's all thanks to a striking coincidence.
The sun is about 400 times as wide as the moon
but it is also 400 times further away.
The two therefore look the same size in the sky
a unique situation among our solar system's eight
____________ and 188 known
____________ Earth is also the only known planet to
____________ life.
Our moon is different, but how did it form?
Planetary scientists believe that,
in the first 100 million years of our solar system,
a Mars-sized object smashed into Earth.
The ____________ radically changed our planet,
expelling a huge amount of
____________ that eventually congealed
into our oversized moon.
Such a big moon is a big
boon
for life on Earth.
As Earth ____________ on its own axis, it has a natural
tendency
to wobble,
owing to the varying pull from other bodies such as the sun.
The unseen hand of the moon's ____________ gently reduces that wobble, preventing
____________ instabilities which would otherwise
have caused dramatic changes in Earth's
____________ zones over time.
Such instabilities would have made it much trickier for life
to get started on our planet.